As geeks, we often have our own, offbeat way of doing things, and Valentine's Day is no different. If you really want to surprise your significant other, put those romantic messages in the last place they'd expect to see them: their tech.

No, I'm not talking about sending her e-cards or something lame like that. There are a lot of things you can do—not unlike our harmless geek pranks for April Fools' Day—that would surprise and melt the hearts of those less tech-savvy. Here are a few simple tricks you can set up in preparation for the big day.

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Create a Rotating Wallpaper Message

Both Windows and OS X allow you to rotate wallpapers on a regular interval, say 5 or 10 minutes. It's great for those of us that can't pick just one wallpaper, but you can also use it to send well-timed messages—especially if you know your significant other is going to be on their computer for a little while. To pull this off:

Put together a string of two or three wallpaper-sized images that make a complete message. Something like:

Wallpaper 1: Roses are red, violets are blue
Wallpaper 2: The first time I saw you...
Wallpaper 3: My heart just knew.*

Put those images in a folder somewhere on your beau or belle's hard drive that they won't find immediately (i.e. not the desktop).

On a Windows machine, right-click on the desktop and choose Personalize. Click on desktop background, then choose "Browse" and browse to your newly created folder. If your valentine uses a Mac, head to System Preferences > Desktop & Screen Saver, hit the plus sign in the bottom left corner, and choose your folder of images.

Under "Change picture", choose an interval. I'd choose something short like every 30 seconds or every minute, so they don't get bored. I'd also make sure your images have vastly different color schemes, so even if they have a window open, they can tell their wallpaper has changed and will go back to the desktop to check it out.

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Hopefully, before the festivities, they'll log on to check their email/send a Facebook message/get driving directions and see your cute message!

Send Sweet, Automated Text Messages

While it's a bit less surprising, the sending of cute text messages throughout the day is a classic, that you can pull off with a tech-savvy twist that won't distract you from work. Instead of manually sending a bunch of romantic messages, you can schedule them to send later with something like previously mentionedAuto SMS for Android, or previously mentionedbiteSMS for jailbroken iPhones. If you're using a feature phone or a non-jailbroken iPhone, you have fewer options—though if you find a good web-based one, share it with us in the comments—but setting a few alarms throughout the day and pre-planning your messages can help make the whole thing a little easier on you, too.

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And if you want to make this one a bit more unique, you could try making a customized heart candy image using the ACME Heart Maker. Then (again, with access to his or her computer or phone), you could add that heart image as the avatar for you in their address book. That way, when you send them their Valentine's Day text messages, they get a little bonus surprise message along with it!

Make a V-Day Playlist Interspersed with Cute Messages

Lastly, if they have an iPod or other MP3 player that they use to listen to music, you can sneak into their media player and insert a few spoken messages into their favorite playlists. Or, better yet, you can make a Valentine's Day playlist with your romantic messages and make it easy to spot, so they'll listen to it at some point during the day. If you've already got a preferred method of recording audio on your computer, use that, but for the rest of us, here's the easiest way to do this:

Head to web site Record MP3 and record your message. It'll spit out an MP3 of your recording, and you can put that into any media player you want (like iTunes). Then, just put it into their playlist of choice, sync it up with their iPod, and hope for the best! If their music taste is a bit more unpredictable on any given day, you can try inserting it into multiple playlists to make sure they hear it—or even start playing it so that when they turn the device on, it's the first track that pops up.